Borrowing from Star Wars, engineers at NASA's Ames Research Center, just south of San Francisco, CA, are developing a personal assistant robot that can hover over an astronaut's shoulder in space, or work at the direction of an astronaut in situations too dangerous for a human. Floating weightlessly, the machine could have many uses: patrolling corridors for gas leaks, reminding astronauts about the tasks on their to-do lists, or serving as a communication link when people are busy using both hands. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 124.